People Who Will Hold You Back in College

Let's just say, sometimes college is difficult. Gratuitously difficult. The track to graduation is based on how fast and how well you finish your classes, and there's a bunch of them. So what's holding you back? Why does it sometimes feel like nothing you do makes things easier? Here's a look at why you may not be performing the way you want to.

Your professor is, well, an asshole.

There really is no simple way to put this. Every once in a while, a college student will register for a class with a bad feeling. All of the negative energy is confirmed the minute the professor walks into the lecture hall. The way to tell if your professor is an asshole is by his eyes. He may look like a normal person on the outside, but there's just something about the eyes that give him away.

There are many ways he can be an asshole. Some professors just don't care. They'd rather be at home with their kids at baseball practice, but instead they're stuck here, on a beautiful sunny afternoon, telling you why Theodore Roosevelt beat everyone with his big stick. Or maybe they only care about themselves. Sadly, many professors care nothing about you learning anything at all. So even if you wrote something correctly on the test and it was graded incorrectly, your professor will come up with various reasons as to why you won't get points back. None of them are reasonable.

And sometimes, it's because he's the dean of associate chair of highest ranking you will ever hear of some random committee you have never heard of. That's right, his ego is the size of Montana. He's here to teach, but his ego is so big that it's blocking his view of the classroom, preventing him from seeing the plethora of hands raised in the air. He walks around with a cocky demeanor, and smart as he may be, he is oblivious to his errors and he will refuse to admit them.

In any case, if you are stuck with one of these professors (and colleges WILL hire them to make your life difficult), you can either drop the class like it's hot, or hang in there and do everything he says in the way he wants you to do it. Your choice.

Your TA is, well, an asshole.

Many times, professors won't have the chance to select a teaching assistant for their classes unless they are basically the head of the department. So even if they're good professors, don't blame them if their TAs are asses. And a lot of them are. Even more than professors.

A teaching assistant is usually a student, probably someone that is around your age. He or she has proficient knowledge in the subject matter, so arguing over something you are sure is correct won't matter one bit. Once again, ego plays a huge factor, but most likely he or she is just plain unhappy with something else going on in life. So unhappy that in order to make themselves happy they need to make you unhappy. These TAs have a nasty habit of putting a lot of X marks where they're not even needed. I have come to the conclusion that they just like to see the color red. They can't wait to break out the red marker and start storming your paper like a child with crayons.

Sadly, TAs are usually the ones who will grade everything. Since college classes are large and plenty, professors won't have the time to sift through 200 exams x the 4 classes that they teach. So be prepared for a low grade, but most likely there was some grading that was done over-aggresively, something that can be easily remedied by speaking with the professor. Provided your professor isn't an asshole as well.

Your roommate was an actor in Animal House.

Remember that movie? The one that portrayed all college students as being soft-skulled idiots who partied so much that their livers failed? Every so often, college students may (or may not) be paired with someone who was either an actor in that movie, or a direct descendant of someone in that movie. Plain and simple, forget about trying to get peace and quiet. Oh yea, and sleep. Your best bet is to go to the library, a place where students walk around like ghouls because of the lack of sleep they get. Guess what, they've probably got roommates like you.

If this so happens to be your unlucky day and your roommate loves to party like its 1970, remember to switch out. Plain and simple. Leave.

Your academic advisor can't count/hates you/hates his or her job.

Planning is essential to being able to graduate in a timely manner and in good academic standing. In order to be able to have a degree petition available, you will frequently need to meet with your academic advisor during your college years to work out all of the details regarding your departure to society.

Some advisors can't count. Others can't read. You'll know once you meet with him or her, but you will probably be stuck with the same advisor, because most schools order things alphabetically and won't let you change. The best thing to do? Learn to do your advisor's job yourself. It consists merely of planning when to take what class, how much each class counts for, and adding them all up to determine how long it will take you to graduate. I have known many students who listened to their advisor to the very end, only to find that their graduation dates would be delayed by a semester by ONE WHOLE CLASS. This class will most likely happen to be in the middle of the day as well, meaning you probably won't be able to find a job, because what employer wants to invest training in an employee who has to drive to school and back everyday during lunch break?

Unless you don't really care when you graduate and love school to the point of wanting to stay there for a few extra semesters, then make sure you understand the ins and outs of your major curriculum.

You. Go look in a mirror.

Amazingly, you could be holding yourself back and not knowing it. If you:

- Laugh like a hyena in class and think that no one can hear you.

- Use your textbooks as tools to kill bugs.

- Go to class but forget to bring a pencil.

- Give yourself ten more minutes of gaming that turns into 3 A.M.

- Give yourself ten more minutes of sleep that turns into 3 P.M.

- Look at the board but dream of Charlize Theron.

- Look at your female TA and dream of Charlize Theron.

- Look at your textbook and everything looks like Charlize Theron.

There are many ways to shoot yourself in the foot. After all, your college education is an investment in your own academic future, so why should anyone care so much about you? If you want anything in society, you must know to make way for you to get it yourself. So even if all of the people you come in contact with are assholes, you should still be able to graduate in a normal amount of time with a good GPA. Stop giving yourself excuses by claiming that everyone around you is out to get you or you just don't have enough time. If you're reading this article the night before a test, you are my case in point. Or if you're on Facebook. Deactivate your account you addicts.

The characters listed above are only a small percentage of the beings at a university. Most people who have the intellectual capacity to hang around a college campus are usually normal, reasonable, logical human beings. Take some time to think about what exactly is making you unhappy, and if you still feel the need to look for a window and jump out of it, then you probably should.

Because if you can't deal with people from different walks of life, then it's time for you to go. Life is a lot harder than that.